Dean Christakos« No Problems! | Main | Stuff You Can't Make Up »
May 30, 2006
Clarifying a Few Things
A reader in the comments asks:
Lemee get this straight - you went four whole days without seeing any women? Did they try to recruit you into the er, monkhood?
The answer to the first question is yes. The funny thing was that on the night before I left for Mt. Athos, I was having dinner in Ouranopolis, and right at that moment, a tour ship, presumably one which gives tours of the coast of Halkidiki, stopped at the dock and the passengers disembarked. The passengers were entirely women, and they all walked by the restaurant where I was eating, perhaps on the way to their hotel or tour bus. It was as though I was being told, "this is the last sight you will get of women for the next few days." Permits to visit Mt. Athos, as I said, are only issued to men. The peninsula itself is basically one large monastery. The largest portion of the visitors appeared to me middle-aged Greek men who decided to spend a weekend "on retreat" at Mt. Athos. For Orthodox visitors, particularly if one lives within driving distance of Mt. Athos, it's not that difficult to get a permit, and one is pretty much free to take part in the daily lives of the monks. For those who need more explanation of Orthodoxy, this cheat sheet to Christianity might help...
Orthodox(ok, though, seriously, there are better explanations here)
For many years, American scholars believed the Orthodox were, like leprechauns, unicorns, and Eskimos, purely the product of the fanciful imaginations of medieval writers. Recent evidence leads us to tentatively conclude, however, that Eastern Orthodoxy may have somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million adherents. Protestants tend to see the Orthodox as "Catholics with beards," while Catholics confess to a haunting sense that they are simply "Orthodox without beards."
One of the reasons that I started out at Xenophontos monastery was because of the suggestion of someone I met who said that they were relatively laid-back-- there I was able to take pictures inside the monastery, the monks were receptive to visitors, and non-Orthodox visitors wouldn't immediately feel out-of-place. Xenophontos was hosting a long-term visitor who was a retired Episcopalian Art History Professor who had been visiting Mt. Athos almost every year since the early 70s, and he felt welcome there. Along with only issuing 10 permits a day to non-Orthodox visitors, some monasteries only allow Orthodox Christians to attend church services and eat meals with the monks. The monks seem to be caught between the act of trying to maintain receptivity to visitors yet at the same time seamlessly maintain their monastic lifestyle which is going to be a bit challenging when you have more than 20 visitors a day, every day, coming to stay with you.
Was I being "recruited into the monkhood"? Well, as I said a couple of days ago, one monk at Dochiariou monastery did point out to me the very valid point that there were plenty of people in Computer Science, while there is a greater need for people to join the clergy, and he asked me why I didn't study theology and join the clergy. So I'm sure that no one there would have minded if I told them I wanted to stay, because monasteries always need an extra set of hands. I should note that there are rumors of monks with Ph.D.s in Physics and Electrical Engineering who decided that they wanted to stay on Mt. Athos, but I'm putting the place in a category of "great place to visit, wouldn't live there."
Posted by Dean at May 30, 2006 3:23 AM
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Comments
heehee
a monk with no past...
you're not fooling anyone.
xo
Posted by: t-rat at May 30, 2006 10:24 AM